


Stage Doors

by HerbertBest



Category: Good Game (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Caught in the Act, F/M, Friendship, Getting Over a Crush, Getting the Band Together, Growing Up, Moving On, Music, Musicians, Pet Ownership - Freeform, Recovery, Sobriety, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 06:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14182551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: Alex's life takes a turn for the interesting and better when he meets up with a magical creature.





	Stage Doors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fallenandscatteredpetals](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallenandscatteredpetals/gifts).



> Written for Bell, using their original character Leon via their permission!
> 
> Thank you to Theseus for editing this!

“Florida.” 

Alex said the words with a huge, almost desperate smile. “We’re going to go to Florida!”

Ryland barely looked up from his computer, his fingers clicking away at directional keys. 

“Yeah, Florida, I remember you saying Florida. Which neither of us can afford, because we didn’t actually win Blood Match.”

Alex gestured at the world around them, his eyes wide. 

“You had a moral victory! That’s the best kind!”

Ryland raised an eyebrow but didn’t look up. He let out a satisfied cheer when he finished his match, then shut off the computer. 

“Wanna go out for dinner? I just got paid.”

Alex felt a little chill run down his spine. The implication was that Ryland, who’d parlayed his victory at the killcore match into a series of online jobs tutoring the young and naïve protégés in the way of the game, was the real adult here. But the truth was plain and simple and real - he’d gotten paid but Alex had not. Still Alex beamed. 

“Sure! If you like we can make it a team thing….”

“Nah, Kamal and Sam are doing some kind of convention thing, Leland’s across town on a date, and um…Ash is kind of planning on seeing me tomorrow.” The tips of his ears turned red as he grabbed his hoodie and they headed out the door.

On foot, they made their way through the quiet California neighborhood they’d called home for six years. 

As Ryland struggled to keep pace with Alex’s long strides, Alex couldn’t stop himself from feeling clearly crestfallen by the situation. 

“Oh,” Alex said. “When were you planning on telling your best friend that you were going out with a totally pretty girl he finds super hot?”

“Soon,” said Ryland flatly. “I don’t want to push it. Ash has been through a lot the past couple of months and I don’t…”

“…Want to drive her way with your super intense gloom and doom stuff?” Alex asked. 

Ryland shot him a frown. 

“I’m sorry, let me try that again…,” said Alex.

“Why? You’re just going to fuck it up again…” muttered Ryland under his breath. 

Alex pretended not to hear him. 

“Sorry, man. I’m just bugging out a little. We’re going back into practice in a couple of days and I guess the stress is kind of getting to me. Ryland sounded as apologetic as he ever did. 

“It’s no problem, dude. I heard nothing, just nothing!” Alex insisted overbrightly. He suddenly realized something - he was always pretending, it seemed, not to hear Ryland’s half-muttered disgust. But it was all right. Ryland was his friend. The only real friend he had, though he supposed the other members of the team came pretty close now. 

“Right,” Ryland said. “We’re going to Scarpinis?”

“As always,” said Alex. His stomach rumbled at the appealing promise of a ton of chicken parmesan and spaghetti. It had been ages since they’d had money for a sit-down dinner, and now that they did he wanted to stuff himself sick with anything and everything under the sun.

He knew why without asking himself. So he could spend more time with Ryland alone. So that maybe they could really talk for once, and Ryland could feel as close to him as Alex felt toward Ryland. 

Maybe if they were luck, the moon would shine just brightly enough over the big fake box hedges that rimmed the concrete patio, and he’d look at Alex and finally see all of the wonderful things in him - the thing that Alex only felt when he was standing onstage and when Ryland was smiling at him.

That was when he saw the bushes rustle in a new way; frightening, almost counter-corner, as if it were being beaten from inside with a stick. Ryland sprung back from the bush, but Alex –unthinking of his own safety as always, and always presuming that the world wasn’t out to undo his very existence, knelt beside the bush and started to rummage among the leaves and brambles. 

“Hey buddy, c’mon…”

“It’s going to be a rat,” Ryland said. “And if you get bitten I’m not taking you to a doctor.

“It’s not going to be a rat!” protested Alex. “Rats don’t make adorable waffling noises and lick my fingertips like a lost, beloved dog!”

“…It’s definitely a rat,” Ryland complained.

Alex laughed at him, a low, smoky sound. 

“You’re such a card,” he said, and gently grasped the creature’s forelimbs and gave them a gentle pull.

And to his shock, there was a small horse.

Alex’s eyes went wide as Ryland stared blankly at the creature. Alex clapped his long fingers over his own mouth and made a sound of delighted glee. 

“Oh my God, it’s a bush pony!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ryland squawked. “That’s a unicorn! A fuckin’ uni…oh my God, my mother was right about contact highs. STAY AWAY FROM ME!” he yelled, pointing at Alex. 

Alex just shrugged and picked the little unicorn up like it was a baby, cradling it to his chest while spewing forth with some nonsense baby talk. “No, don’t pick I up! It might have some kind of weird disease!”

“How can you say that? It’s just a baby,” said Alex. 

Ryland just stared at the creature, watched his roommate make nonsense noises while the unicorn stared up at him with wide and nearly uncomprehending blue eyes. 

Alex cooed at the unicorn, going on his merry way, ignoring the entreating of Ryland as he walked.

“Are you going to take him into the restaurant?”

Alex shook his head. “He’s a bush horse. Bush horses are magical and can’t comprehend the importance of not eating other people’s spaghetti.”

“Right,” Ryland said. 

Alex bent by the thick bushes outside the restaurant and kept cooing to him, telling him he’d be back soon, if he hadn’t gone off on his merry way by the time he came back. 

As always, over spaghetti and pizza the differences between Ryland and Alex melted away easily. 

Alex had felt at home with Ryland for years; he understood well the pattern and timber and general way a conversation with him would go, even when their mouths were full. 

He sat back with pride and observed the people around him having their own dramas, their own meals. Back when he was a struggling songwriter he’d sat by himself and taken in the activities of those around him, using them as grist for his stories. But those songs had never been sellable, and he’d found himself alone most of the time, disappearing into alcoholism as his dreams faded and fell apart in the far distance. 

He couldn’t help the way things were, and the way alcohol made him feel – as if he were finally in control of his life, as if he finally was handsome and brave and talented as he wished he were.

As if everyone else was looking at him the way Ryland did.

Dinner slid down his throat, and he managed to curtail his drinking to a single beer before helping Ryland pay the bill. He didn’t make much in his tiny little job tending bar, but it was enough to tuck in for the rent, enough to introduce him to people who might want his coaching skills, enough for him to keep on hoping as the world around him swept its circles. Side-by-side, Ryland and Alex walked out of the restaurant and made their way back to the bush.

One little hoof stuck out from beneath the bushes. Alex might have squealed when he bent over and scooped up the little unicorn, holding him close to his chest.

“We are not taking that thing home,” Ryland said. He put enough distance between Alex and himself to sadden Alex.

“But Ryland, this is destiny!” Alex decided out loud. “It’s meant to be.” The unicorn didn’t react to his cuddling, a hoof clomping decisively and painfully against his chest. “And besides, he didn’t go home with anyone else.”

“I don’t care. What are we supposed to do with a unicorn?”

“Take care of it! Let its magic bless our lives. And by the way, Ryland, you owe me a little favor,” Alex reminded him.

“Right. I owe you a favor. The guy who sleeps on my couch…”

“….The guy who brought you back to the delightful world of gaming,” Alex corrected. “And the guy who got you potentially the best thing that might have ever happened to you in the form of Miss Ash. “ Ryland grumbled. “Aww, buddy - I remember a four year old who didn’t have anyone else to play games with. Then a certain tall guy came along and helped him out.”

“…You’re eight years older than me,” Ryland said.

“I know. I meant my nephew Jonas. I really should call my sister later…”

“Please focus. Just focus for one fucking second,” begged Ryland.

Alex did his best - there were too many thoughts going through his head at once, and he wanted to get all of them out at once.

“You’re just pissed because I wouldn’t let you get a hamster,” said Ryland. “And I only wouldn’t let you get a hamster because you were planning on letting it go free range all over my kitchen floor.”

“I was going to build a series of tunnels and bridges for them to climb though! They’re too tiny and squishy! I was afraid I might step on it by mistake!” said Alex. He cuddled the unicorn close to him, ducking the unicorn’s head under the thin quilting of his leather jacket. It was close to sunset; magic was thick in the air. Anything might happen now, even the poor thing blipping off into the ether that had created it.

Ryland let out a very long, very irritated sigh. “Okay, fine. But you have to walk it. I’m not going to clean up unicorn poop all day - I have a real business now.”

Had he been treating Ryland like a maid for too long? Was that the problem? It wasn’t as if Ryland had done that much while Alex was out of the house working retail and drinking…mostly drinking, but who was counting at this point? “I’ll walk him and feed him and go on magical adventures with him!” Alex began to happily march down the street with the unicorn’s head resting on his shoulder, staring backward at Ryland with its big blue eyes.

Alex couldn’t blame the unicorn. If he were in its hooves, he would stare back at Ryland all day too.

 

**** 

Alex found himself scrounging through the limited scraps of food they had left in the pantry, trying to figure out what unicorns liked to eat. When he tried a little bit of wilted lettuce and half a tomato, the unicorn turned up its nose and clopped off to the living room.

That begged the question where unicorns slept. He watched the creature climb onto the couch that was his usual home base and gave him a sad look of dismay. 

“That’s mine, buddy. And it’s like, the only thing that really IS mine in this house.” Silence. Alex crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “Dude! Come on, I want to go to bed too!”

But the unicorn didn’t move. 

Alex threw his arms up in disgust and headed off to take a long shower. Returning thirty minutes later to a sleeping unicorn, he grabbed some couch cushions and settled them on the ground. He had no idea how long he could take sleeping on the floor but he’d do it for a little while longer, would endure a creaking, aching back If it made his new guest feel safe.

When he woke in the morning, his back felt fine. And there was a blanket thrown over his midsection.

Huh. He didn’t remember grabbing one before he fell asleep.

Stretching, he lumbered off to dress in the bathroom and was halfway through brushing his teeth when he heard moaning coming from Ryland’s room. 

Shit! Was he hurt? 

Was he sick? 

Had his appendix burst in the middle of the night while Alex slumbered safely in the neighboring room? 

Filled with frantic fear, he rushed off toward Ryland’s room and ripped the door open.

And there was Ash. Completely naked, riding Ryland’s lap.

She didn’t seem too peeved; just tossed her long hair over her shoulder and glared at him like a cockroach. 

“Dude, do you mind?”

Ryland – beet red, sweating, his eyes screwed closed – grabbed Ash by the hips and tried to maneuver his body over hers – a protective gesture Alex recognized from his own lonely fantasies. 

“Dude, what the fuck!?” came Ryland’s angry shout. 

He was almost cross-eyed with fury, and guilt settled like a wet ball of paste at the base of Alex’s stomach.

“Woah, I’m sorry!” Alex said, backing away, latching the door. He wished, for just a minute, he’d dissolve like the little mermaid in the storybook his mother used to read to him. 

No one followed him to the living room, where he sat on the floor and curled into a ball, burying his face against his knee, his eyes overflowing and tears drizzling down his nose. Little sobs cut through the air, sawed out of his lungs with a sharp, violent push of pain. He moaned and curled up tighter.

That was when someone licked him. 

Right in the ear. 

Alex sputtered and yanked back and away from the couch, only to feel a fuzzy muzzle poking away at his shoulder. 

This just made him cry a little bit harder; he felt valid, noticed, wanted, so suddenly and so completely.

“Hey buddy,” he whispered, scratching him under the chin. “Oh, you’re such a good guy, aren’t you?” he whispered. “You’re the only one…” 

The only one who cares, he thought to himself, but didn’t say it out loud. 

That would be unfair to Ryland. 

Ryland who’d given him a home and worked so hard to get beyond his hang-ups so he could fulfill Alex’s dreams of stardom. He’d done his best and he deserved to be with Ash.

No matter how much that hurt Alex’s heart.

He looked at the unicorn, who eyed him with a strange note of expectancy in his eyes. 

“Wanna go down to the pet supply store?” he asked.

The unicorn nudged his hand. 

Alex took that as a yes, and instead of going to his bong or fishing the last beer out of their refrigerator, he grabbed his leather jacket and headed back to the center of town.

*** 

The trip was not an easy one; he found himself cross-town two hours later, lying to equine specialists, buying shampoo and halters and special sponges and brushes. It took most of the rest of the pocket money he had; by then he was hungry enough to stop and take a long break outside of the nearest taco truck. 

He stuffed his face, secretly dropping bits of it into the bushes, covering up the rustling noises with the sound of his own coughing and his body shifting against the pavement.

He didn’t remember that he had other obligations until his phone started frantically buzzing. It was Sam’s number.

 _Where R u?_ asked the message. _Practice was supposed to start an hour ago!_

 

*** 

“I’m sorry I got distracted by my magical unicorn friend!” Alex shouted, bursting into the house with the animal tucked under his arm. 

Five sets of eyes looked up from their screens at him and blinked in confusion.

“What’s up with curls?” Kamal asked, his fingers tapping away on his eyes.

“He’s got a new friend,” Ryland said. “Who’s apparently the most important thing in his life right now.”

Alex felt a wave of anxiety capsize his fear as Ryland’s judgment washed over him, cold and impersonal. 

Were they ever really friends? Could they ever be, in light of who they were becoming? 

“GET BACK TO YOUR COMPUTERS,” Alex shouted, trying to hear his old, tough coach’s voice over his heart slamming against the back of his throat. “I wanna see pixelated blood and I wanna see it now!”

“Relax,” Sam said. “We’ve got everything going for us. Y’know, since we came in second at the freaking Blood Match.”

“Rest is for people who actually WIN Blood Matches,” Alex said. “Do you want to be weak? Do you want to end up losing to whoever Streamin’ cons into helping him out next year?” he yelled.

“What’s his dental like?” asked Lorenzo, earning him a pointed look from Sam. “I have a little piece of corn kernel, it’s stuck behind my tooth and I need to get someone to…”

Alex cut him off. “Back to work! Heal damn you! Ash, I want to see your fingers moving, stop trailing behind.”

“I don’t trail behind anyone. Especially not Ryland,” she said. “You know when we’re together he likes me on top.”

Alex choked – painfully and suddenly – on his own spit, and even Ryland’s cheeks turned a proud shade of pale red. 

It was like a shot in the gut for Alex, but he couldn’t articulate why out loud. 

Ryland was so happy. 

And no matter how Alex felt, he wouldn’t disturb his roommate’s happiness for anything in the world.

“Forgetting that,” he wheezed. “Forgetting everything about that. Work, please,” he added, half as a second thought.

Ash gave him one of her winning smiles, the kind that looked like a snake swallowing its young live and whole. She turned back to her game and blasted a gnome into pieces with a wave of her character’s hand. 

“Good,” Alex said.

But there was no real conviction in Alex’s voice. He was an actor speaking lines he didn’t believe in.

The unicorn’s horn poked at the inside of his arm, drawing a tingly sensation down his hand. This too was some odd form of peace.

His words came more softly after that moment, and no one made a remark about his sudden change in attitude. 

The team made its goals, but Alex didn’t have to do much. And for once that felt all right.

He didn’t need to push things with the unicorn in his arms. That unicorn – strange as that sounded – could nurture him for once.

*** 

“Are you teaching your magic horse to play fetch?”

Alex didn’t feel the sting of Ryland’s words as he normally would have. 

“Maybe,” he said idly, his toes scraping along the carpet while he grinned at the unicorn and made clicking noises with his tongue, and then gently tossed an orange over handed toward the unicorn. He caught the fruit in his mouth, then trotted up to Alex with a satisfied look on his face. “He was bored.”.

“Right. So I’m going out on another date with Ash.” 

Ryland indicated his suit jacket and buttoned down shirt, two items of clothing he’d rarely bothered with during his long time living with Alex.

“Cool,” said Alex. “Please put a sock on your door so I won’t walk in on the two of you slapping junk, all right?”

“Right. Do you want me to bring you a doggie bag?”

“Oh no, that’s all right,” said Alex. “Me and Leon…”

“…Leon? You actually named it?”

“He’s my buddy!” Alex said. “Of course I named him!”

“Why did you….fuck it forget it. So I won’t be back until past midnight,” Ryland continued. “I don’t have a consultation til around twelve tomorrow, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“See you,” Alex said. And for some reason when Ryland walked out the door, it didn’t feel like he was carrying Alex’s heart away with him. 

*** 

 

Alex and Leon spent most of the night playing fetch. 

Alex admitted to himself that he was having a lot of fun watching the little guy run like the dickens to try to grab the ball out of the air. Sometimes he involved a little bit of magical levitation; Alex wasn’t too alarmed by that fact.

He was in the presence of great magic, after all!

“Look at you, dancing under those balls!” he called over to Leon, as the little unicorn pranced on his hind legs. In spite of himself, he started singing through his nose to his own words. “Dancing…ball….dancing balllls,” Alex sang to himself. A sheer sense of panic filled his mind and soul. He hadn’t allowed himself to be creative this way for years, not since his last band broke up. He’d been numb, paralyzed to musical thought, stuck working a counter job without much of a brain until the team came along. 

He took a deep breath and took out his looseleaf notebook. Carefully, he pulled the words from his mind, from his soul. There was no more time to waste, suddenly, and the song built out from his guts, his mind. 

By the time Ryland came in through the front door, Alex had a song in his hand, masked to an old tape recorder. He approached with excitement in his eyes and Ryland guiltily cast his eyes downward, so that Alex couldn’t meet his gaze. 

“Hey, so uh….Ash got a job working for one of those magazine shows. She’s gonna be an international correspondent. It means a lot for her, but she’s going to have to be based out of New York.”

Alex suddenly felt like he’d swallowed a bowling ball. “So we’re not gonna go to Florida after all?”

“Yeah. And I’m going to go with her.” Alex made a loud, gutshot noise and immediately Ryland rushed in to cover the damage. “We’ll still be able to do killcore, man. We’ll have a cable connection and a high speed computer…”

“But I’m gonna have to move,” Alex said. “You know there’s no way we can cover the rent for this place separately.”

Ryland winced but said nothing. “You can talk to Lorenzo. You know he’ll cut you a deal.”

“But what about us?” Alex asked. Already he regretted using the term, the idea that there was an ‘us’ to be dealt with.

“We’ll always be… friends.” The word was a mealy-mouthed lie. Alex could hear the blatant insincerity in his voice. The words floated back into Alex’s mind, a hideous, bobbing balloon filled with a bag of bloody truth. 

Ryland didn’t even like him as a friend, let alone as a potential lover.

But then again, as he sat and thought about the situation, as he considered what the future would be like if Ash and Ryland actually stayed, something in him galvanized into steel. The idea of watching the two of them make out for the rest of his life while he smiled at the sight and while he denied some fundamental feeling deep in his heart, sounded like a total fucking nightmare. And it was one he didn’t need to participate. He could feel his spine regrowing, his nerve regenerating. 

“Okay,” Alex said. “Be out of here by…five days whenever. I’ll figure something out…”

“Fuck. Okay,” Ryland said, taking a deep breath. “Alex…Man. I’ve always wondered…”

“What?” Alex scratched the unicorn under his chin.

“Why do you care so much, anyway? I’m just some dude who was afraid of being alive. Why do you like me so much?”

“Because I fucking love you, dude!” 

Ryland went very still, as Alex’s words rolled through the room like a shockwave of thunder. 

“I am in fucking love with you, and I’d been like that since we were both a couple of dumb kids in the club scene looking for something great to happen.” Leon started to lick his fingertips. “But it’s cool. I understand you don’t love me back, that way. Or at all. And you don’t have to. I just…That’s why. That’s why.”

“Oh,” said Ryland heavily. He cleared his throat, and watched as Leon butted the tips of Alex’s fingers. “I’m…not gay, dude.”

“Neither am I. Or I didn’t think that I was.” 

Silence filled the room. 

“Okay. I’m gonna go to bed. We can talk to Lorenzo in the morning.” Ryland started his retreat back into the bedroom.

“Right,” Alex said. Neither of them were expecting it when a pillow magically drifted it way across the room and collided with the back of Ryland’s head at great speed.

Ryland oofed and winced, grabbing the pillow and throwing it back in Alex’s direction. 

“Dude, you don’t have to make a big deal out of it. I’m sorry I was an ass.”

“It’s fine,” Alex said. He took the pillow back and shoved it under Leon’s head. Only when they were alone did he turn to whisper conspiratorially at the unicorn. “Be nice,” requested Alex half-heartedly. He scratched Leon’s mane and let out a long sigh. Things were going to be really weird from now on, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. 

He could only move forward. And to that end, he got up and got himself a sandwich, with an apple for Leon.

 

*** 

Deep in the night was when the consequences descended on his head like a rainstorm. He stared for a minute at the bottle of Jack Daniels. He could swallow the whole thing down in a single gulp, if he wanted to. He could smoke the end of his stash and float on an anesthetized cloud of joy, to cover up all of the pain and humiliation of his confession.

But no. For some reason…no. He didn’t need it. 

He pulled his bass back into his lap. Leon’s head poked his knee and he scratched it. 

In a low, mouselike voice, he started to sing to himself about moving out and on, into the beauty of the morning light, where there was so much waiting for him.

**** 

He neededn’t’ve have worried about Lorenzo; the man agreed to waive the rent while the two of them figured out what was going on with Ryland’s move and Alex got himself a steady job. 

Alex had no plans for the latter to happen; he was obsessively studying the want ads, obsessively showing up to band auditions, slinging his bass wherever he went.

For the first time in a long time, he had a certain sense of motivation, of pressure that was positive and insistently important. All the while, Leon jogged with him, trying to keep pace, his magic getting stronger with ever practice session they did together. His substance. He shook a little for a week or two, but pressed along, sober, for the first time in many years.

At the next practice session, Ash ignored his gaze, and Alex continued to pretend that she didn’t exist in return.

In three weeks there were four songs. Then five. Then six. A band called ‘The Bloody Lemons’ called him and asked if he really knew how to wail on the bass like a god.

Alex packed his kit and headed off to a club. There was a practice that night. To his amazement he didn’t tell anyone where he was going beforehand.

To his amazement, he didn’t care.

** 

The Bloody Lemons were babies, really; one of them at eighteen could have been his kid, and another was only five years older than that. They were neophytes, fresh clay to be molded, and they looked upon Alex with kindness as he set up his beat-up old instrument and fiddled with his dials. 

He took a deep breath before he started playing some Rush – Fountains of Lamaneth, he knew it from the very center of his soul, from the very deepest core of his being and thus didn’t have to think too hard as he plucked the cords. He closed his eyes and let the music take him somewhere else – somewhere where he looked as beautiful on the outside as he felt on the inside when he was singing.

There was a long pause that passed between them when he finished. Alex waited for the axe to fall and sever his dreams in half. 

Then the head guitarist opened his mouth. “Dude. You are so cool for an old guy.”

“Thank you!” Alex said brightly, ignoring the ageism – ignoring everything but the word ‘cool’. Someone had finally called him cool. 

Anything else that came with that kind of compliment he’d accept with gracious good humor.

*** 

Time passed by. He helped Ryland move, waved him away as he and Ash drove off toward the East in their little U-Haul. Meeting and practice for both of his projects proceeded along well. 

A month later, Ash sent him a note on perfumed stationary, explaining her position. She liked him, she said, but the whole situation was weird and uncomfortable. She understood that he was dealing with shit, but if it involved the team could he please keep his drama to himself. 

He had Leon burn the note with his magic, and began making plans to record his songs with The Bloody Lemons.

*** 

The first gig was a special one. He put on his old glittery jumpsuit, the one with the Star of David on it, and then he applied streaks of glitter in shades of blue to the sharply-hewn lines of his face. 

Leon had stowed away in his gig bag; he sat nearby, happily watching as Alex put on his makeup. The other Bloody Lemons, lost in their own minds, didn’t say anything as Alex’s unicorn helped him with brushes and pots of lacquer. 

The evening sped by. When Alex was onstage, with a microphone in his hand, singing happily along to the music, the world around him disappeared into nothingness. The power he felt when he was songwriting finally, joyfully, translated into real actions, into his performance personality.

The club was half-empty when they’d begun, but by the end of the night, as he bowed, Alex realized something – there was a sea of faces out there, throwing dollar bills onto the stage. He had reached someone. He’d made someone care about him.

And it was better than living in his own head, in a strange dream, disassociated from the rest of the world. He was living in reality, at last, and all it had taken was a good friend and a little faith.

By the stage door – among the groupie girls and the screaming teenagers – he saw a head of brown hair and a blond streak running through it. Abased, he stood back until the rest of them were gone.

“Hey,” Ryland said.

“Hey,” said Alex, as Leon made a noise of disgust, his head poking free of the gig bag.

“Look,” Ryland said quietly. “I know I was kind of a dick to you. I wish I hadn’t been one, but I was so insecure and kind of insular and a lot of i-words. But I wanted you to know – you were fucking great up there tonight.”

A smile slowly spread across Alex’s face. 

“Thank you,” he said, and meant the word. 

Two words that were becoming easier to say, these days.

“Can you and Leon come to dinner with me and Ash? We’re in town seeing her mother, so…”

“Oh, sure,” said Alex. And there wasn’t that yawning sensation of fear, there wasn’t that heavy weight, the yawning sensation of lust haunting him.

They actually smiled at each other before turning and following each other, side by side and in matching strides, toward Ryland’s car, Leon’s head blepping its way over the top of the bag.


End file.
